


all the years i missed your warmth

by actualflower



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Ambiguously Gendered Hawke, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Other, Post-Game, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 21:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3090368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualflower/pseuds/actualflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s vicious, it’s bloody, and it’s cruel, and it’s everything Fenris needs.</p>
<p>Title taken from Islands by Young the Giant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the years i missed your warmth

It’s vicious, it’s bloody, and it’s cruel, and it’s everything Fenris needs. Dark burgundy blood lies cooling on the plush carpet of a Tevinter slaver’s estate. It’d taken him weeks of bribes and waiting, just waiting and praying to whatever absent god chose to listen that the slaver would slip up, and they did. He kneels next to the body. Their eyes are frozen open in shock, lifeless. Fenris still remembers their shriek of surprise when his hand phased into their chest, ripping their heart apart. He stands and eyes the open window across the room.

Fenris can make out the edges of several ledges that bracket the windows of lower floors. He walks over, languid, not bothering to avoid kicking the hand of the body in his way. He hops his way down the building and jumps to the ground, rolling smoothly. He doesn’t bother to look behind him as he begins to run -- faintly, the distant calls of alarm are just now beginning to ring within the estate.

Fenris runs. He runs, and he runs, and he doesn’t stop, doesn’t stop until his legs and lungs feel as if on fire. He goes to lean against a tree trunk, only for a moment. No moonlight filters through the shifting tree leaves; only the pinpricks of starlight break through the darkness of the night sky. Fenris stars up at the stars, and imagines Hawke staring up at them, too. Hawke, burning bright with a staff in hand as they murdered hunters sent for him. Hawke, smiling as they downed drink after drink, going toe to toe with Varric and Isabela in a drinking contest at the Hanged Man. Hawke, vicious and determined, willing to carve a path through hell itself to do good by a world that was made to hate them.

Hawke, staring Fenris down as he marched into the Gallows, guards behind him, and putting down their staff.

Hawke, yelling and screaming at him to “see, why can’t you see, this place is making people rot from the inside out, we need to **fix. this.** ”

Hawke, telling him to “go. Just go.” Hawke, turning away from him, but not before a tear slips down their cheek and catches the moonlight.

Fenris slides down the tree, leaning into its trunk. He breathes deeply, letting memory wash over him. He stares up at the bright pinpricks of light, all the stars in the sky dotting a landscape of purple and black abyss. He remembers. It’s almost a new sensation, remembering. Remembering Hawke, remembering his life, remembering the bright veins of lyrium carved into his skin-

A twig snaps to his right, just ever so behind him, and he freezes. Carefully, slowly, he stands and raises a hand to the longsword strapped to his back. His eyes scan the darkness and glow lyrium-bright for the faintest of moments. It’s for naught, however, as a halla steps out of the brush and paces next to the tree Fenris had rested on. The halla sniffs at him, curious, and returns to its foraging. Fenris backs away from the beast slowly, disappearing into the underbrush with the ease of an experienced fugitive.

Fenris walks through the forest until it breaks away to sand and waves. Not the best place for cover - he could see stretches of beach for miles on either side - but he can appreciate its beauty. It reminds him of Hawke.

He shakes his head roughly. Everything seems to remind him of Hawke.

He finds a sturdy looking tree a little ways into the treeline. He climbs his way up, high enough to see the waves, low enough to drop without injury. Fenris sighs against the tree, letting a leg dangle off the tree limb he’d situated himself on. He pulls the longsword off his back and lays it in his lap with a hand on the hilt. Fenris turns his face to the sky, inky darkness stretching all across Thedas, and sleeps.


End file.
